Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day, folks! Hopefully everyone is able to take a minute today and remember the principles and rights for which he fought and died and honor those who are continuing to push for forward progress.
I am SO excited to post my very first "guest" piece! (Guest is in quotes because, though I started this blog, it's not really my space alone and I am hopeful to have more posts like this in the future.) Corrie doesn't just talk the talk when it comes to body positivity, she walks the walk and does the hard to work to encourage others to love and honor their bodies. This is a topic near and dear to my heart as someone who has spent many years conflating self-worth with physical appearance and internalizing media messages even when I consciously knew it was all smoke and mirrors. I am so happy and honored to have Corrie share why she's marching in the Women's March on Denver this weekend and why body positivity is social justice! I'll be back here in a few days to talk about why I'm flying to Washington, D.C. and marching next weekend too. But first, thank you, Corrie!
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I have struggled in my relationship with my body. I spent a
lot of years trying to make it thinner, stronger, more “healthy,” and
eventually I came to realize that it was not my body that was the problem, it
was the society and culture in which we live. Throughout my youth, I remember
overhearing female role models talk about the latest diet they were on. I
remember hearing men I respected and valued objectifying and dehumanizing women
for their large breasts or fat thighs. I remember being given praise for the
way I looked, or ridiculed just the same. I remember being taught to keep my
virginity, as it was something to be treasured and saved, and used to please a
man, my future husband. I remember thinking my worth was wrapped up in my
physical beauty, and in finding a husband. So, find a husband I did. I got
married when I was 21. Things were good when I was quiet, but when I found my
voice I also got divorced. It wasn’t until I started playing roller derby that
I began to see the world through a different lens. I started to see women, real
women; white, black, gay, straight, Christian, atheist, small, big women
embracing who they were. The formerly unnoticed truth of our society and
culture began to inescapably come into my clear view.
I wish I could say that the nature of the messaging that
exists currently has changed, but its pretty much the same. The difference is
that I no longer internalize any of those messages; instead I fight against
them. I know I am not alone in this struggle of relationship with body. I now
work with people on a daily basis who are fighting the fight of eating disorder
recovery, and really in my opinion, we together are fighting against the
patriarchal system of oppression of women’s bodies. Now, I realize that there
are plenty of cultural expectations of men’s bodies too, but for this
particular article I am going to focus on the oppression that women face in our
culture and society.
We live in a society that is obsessed with the shape and
size of women’s bodies. There is a plethora of potent messaging that is
constantly telling us through social media, advertising, television, diet
promotion, the fitness industry, billboards, magazines, and through many other
avenues, that we are not good enough. We are not thin enough, strong enough,
pretty enough, we don’t have clear enough skin, we have too many wrinkles, we
are too fat, too weak, our teeth are not straight enough, ultimately we are not
enough. The deeper message here is that we are too DIFFERENT. I believe the
source of this oppressive messaging is fear, and desperation to hold onto
power. The fear is rooted in our differences. The patriarchy has a deep
embedded fear of anyone who does not look like the mythological woman that it
promotes – the “thin ideal,” because if we all look and act the same that gives
the patriarchy some semblance of control, and it confiscates our power as
women.
Body positivity is a belief and a movement that focuses on
the recognition, and the internalization of the idea that all bodies are good
bodies, and it is also so much more than that. Our societal messaging, which I
believe comes largely from the patriarchy, is what many in the body positivity
movement refer to as “diet culture.” Diet culture is the oppressive messaging
we see and hear all around us that tells us that our bodies will never be good
enough. I would like to take this one step further, and address the idea of
what diet culture promotes. Size-ism and weight-ism are the pillars of diet
culture. These pillars are the cultural prejudice, discrimination, and
stereotyping of any body that does not fit into the thin ideal. Now size-ism
and weight-ism may be the obvious components of diet culture, but it goes a lot
further than that. In my opinion, diet culture also promotes an undercurrent of
sexism and racism. What is an often time overlooked or ignored reality when
examining diet culture is that the “ideal” body that is promoted goes beyond
just the size, shape, or weight of the woman, and also subliminally addresses
gender and race. More often than not diet culture promotes white bodies as the
ideal, as well as cisgender bodies. There is little or no representation of
people of color and/or of those who do not identify within the cisgender
binary.
Body positivity is about accepting and internalizing the
notion that all bodies are good bodies – regardless of race, ethnicity,
religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, class, size, weight, shape,
or ability. Body positivity is about bestowing each individual with autonomy over
their body and allowing them the space to express themselves freely in this
society without oppression through law or otherwise. Body positivity is also
about recognizing and internalizing the idea that we are more than our bodies,
and our bodies do not define us. It is taking back our power and believing that
our bodies are not who we are.
Learning to accept and possibly even love our bodies, and
even more importantly our whole selves, is an act of rebellion against diet
culture and its enmeshment with the patriarchy and white supremacy. This is
social justice in and of itself because loving ourselves, and believing we are
enough right now – just as we are - are
exactly what diet culture and the patriarchy want to keep us from. When we band
together and embrace our differences, celebrating our breadth of diversity of
shape and size, we become a force that cannot be reckoned with. We as women get
to stand up and say my voice matters, regardless of how my body looks. We get
to demand equal pay, access to healthcare, protection from violence, and equal
rights because we are no longer distracted, wasting our time worrying about
figuring out a way to fit into the thin ideal.
We not only get to embrace our own bodies, but we also get to hold space
for, and celebrate every BODY, recognizing that there is enough space for all
of us. Ultimately, we get to embrace, and step into our POWER.
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